Internet Marketing & RecruitingJobster is an Entrepreneur Machine
I came across this article about my former employer, Jobster, and some of the entrepreneurs that have become successful in their post-Jobster endeavors. I would like to congratulate my friends at BaconSalt – Reilly Devine and Justin Esch. Keep up the good work! I use BaconSalt almost daily!
As found on Cheezhead.com | April 29th, 2009
Web 2.0 technology and lots and lots of venture capital have paved the way for startups to get cranked out of tech assembly lines faster than you can complete your now irrelevant 140-character Tweet endorsing it.
Some stick around and get billion-dollar valuations, while others burn through a lot of cash too fast and find themselves dog-paddling in the deadpool.
Recruiting platform Jobster, which launched in 2004 as one of the most hyped startups in the recruiting space, seems to be acting as not just an incubator of ideas, but a breeding ground for successful entrepreneurs. Jobster may be going through an identity crisis, but their ex-employees are having no problem figuring out what they want to be known for.
Case in point comes with some big news today: those of you with an iPhone have probably downloaded UrbanSpoon, a popular restaurant service that was founded by three former Jobster employees, Ethan Lowry, Adam Doppelt and Patrick O’Donnell. Today Techcrunch reported that UrbanSpoon was bought (reportedly for millions) by IAC, the Internet Giant. UrbanSpoon could have survived on its own, but Lowry said the IAC sweetened the deal with “an offer [they] couldn’t refuse.” Translation: piles and piles of dough.
Another example finds ex-Jobster employees who really bring home the bacon. You may have heard (or tasted) the sensation that is Bacon Salt, a bacon-flavored seasoning that was devised by Dave Lefkow and Justin Esch, two former Jobster employees who translated a love of pork into an incredibly popular product. So popular, in fact, that the media Queen herself, Oprah Winfrey, has endorsed the Bacon Salt product as one of her favorite condiments. And last year’s sales were reported to be in the $1 million range. As for what’s next on their plate, the co-founders say they are working on bacon-scented soap, body spray, and lotion.
And we certainly can’t leave out former Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg, who left the company to start SocialMedian. SocialMedian, a New-York based news-filtering service, was sold last December to Xing for about $7.5 million. Goldberg packed his bags and shipped off to Xing HQ in Hamburg, Germany, where he is currently the VP of Xing’s application platform.
And it doesn’t stop there. Other ex-Jobster employees-turned-entrepreneurs include Andrew Wilmot, founder of Talent Maze, RecruitingBlogs.com founder Jason Davis, who worked with Jobster after selling them Recruiting.com, and Neil Crist, MD at Acture Ventures, Inc.
Whomever is (or was) in charge of hiring at Jobster should be credited for attracting such talented individuals – it’s not often that you see so many employees going on to achieve such notoriety.
